


I'll Dream You, Wide Awake

by watanuki_sama



Category: Common Law
Genre: Alternate Universe, But they get better, Major character death - Freeform, Mental Instability, Multi, PTSD, Psychotic break, Talk about mental illness, Wes is the denial king, mention of self-harm, mention of suicide, sort of (not really)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-12
Updated: 2015-08-12
Packaged: 2018-04-14 10:12:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4560669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/watanuki_sama/pseuds/watanuki_sama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wes lives in two worlds. In one, his wife is alive. In the other, his partner is alive. One of them is a dream; one of them is real. Wes just isn’t sure which is which.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'll Dream You, Wide Awake

**Author's Note:**

> Based on an awesome NBC 2012 show called Awake. You do not need to see Awake to read this fic.
> 
> Title is from the song "Dreaming Wide Awake" by Poets Of The Fall.
> 
> Also posted on FF.net under the penname 'EFAW' on 08.12.15.

_“I dreamed I was a butterfly, flitting around in the sky; then I awoke. Now I wonder; Am I a man who dreamt of being a butterfly, or am I a butterfly dreaming that I am a man?”_   
_—Zhuangzi_

\---

Every morning when he wakes, Wes looks at the bracelet on his wrist.

If it’s red, he rolls over and presses a kiss to his wife’s temple. She slowly starts waking up, and he climbs out of bed. He takes a quick shower, and when he emerges she’s at the sink, blinking sleep out of her eyes and brushing her teeth. He gives her another kiss on the cheek as he passes. He brushes his teeth, gets dressed, and, by the time Alex comes downstairs, has a pot of coffee going, fruit cut, and toast in the toaster. They eat quickly, say their goodbyes, and with one last kiss head off to work.

If the bracelet is blue, Wes takes a moment, closes his eyes, and just breathes. When he finally gets up, he doesn’t look at the empty half of the bed. He takes a shower, brushes his teeth, and gets dressed—he doesn’t touch Alex’s things on the counter, he doesn’t disturb her clothes in the closet. Then he heads downstairs. He gives the lump on the couch an affectionate ‘good morning’ shake, waits for a grunt in response, and retreats to the kitchen. He makes omelets, or he pours cereal—not toast and fruit, not on blue days—and he’s usually pouring his second cup of coffee by the time Travis stumbles in. They eat without saying much, and then Travis staggers off to get ready while Wes cleans up. Eventually Travis comes back down, and they head off to work.

Wes lives in two worlds. In one, his wife is alive, and he goes to work to a new partner.

In the other, Travis sleeps on the couch while the other half of his bed lays cold and empty.

Every morning, Wes wakes up and looks at the bracelet on his wrist, because otherwise he can’t be sure where he is.

\---

_“That was,” Travis groans, patting his stomach, “the absolute best steak I’ve ever eaten.”_

_“How could you tell?” Wes asks, digging out his keys. “You ate it so fast, I don’t think you even chewed. How could you taste it?”_

_“Hey, Alex.” Travis sidles up to Alex, slinging an arm over her shoulder. “Why did we invite him again?”_

_“He had the gift cards,” Alex says, and Travis shakes his head._

_“We could have knocked him out and gone ourselves.” He grins, and winks at her. “Or you could give in and let me steal you away.”_

_“I will punch you in the face,” Wes says mildly, unlocking the car._

_Travis laughs, and Alex chuckles, and the corners of Wes’s mouth turn up._

_This is happiness._

\---

“So how does this work?” Dr. Ryan asks, hands folded neatly in her lap. Every inch of her body is open and inviting, encouraging speech.

Wes stares at the abstract painting behind her head. “I’ve told you a dozen times.”

“Then tell me a dozen and one,” she says firmly, her British accent lending a no-nonsense tone to the words.

He sighs, fingers kneading the arm of the chair. Still not looking at her. “Okay, fine. I wake up, and Alex is alive. I go about my day, go home, and kiss my wife goodnight. I close my eyes, I wake up, and Travis is alive.”

“So you’re switching between two worlds,” Dr. Ryan says, sounding like she’s making notes even though her hands are still. “In one world, you lose your wife. In the other, you lose your partner.”

Wes makes a vaguely affirmative noise in his throat.

“And this has been happening ever since the funeral?”

Wes blinks hard and hooks one finger around the blue bracelet on his wrist.

“Yes.”

\---

_—he stands in his dark suit, behind three rows of weeping foster mothers and grim-faced foster siblings, surrounded by dozens of cops in uniform, badges bisected with black tape, and Alex grips his arm for support as Captain Sutton starts to speak—_

_—he stands in his dark suit, in the front row with Alex’s parents, her father’s face blank and empty with shock, her mother sobbing brokenly into her hands, and Travis is in the row right behind him but Wes feels adrift, lost among friends he doesn’t know and coworkers he hasn’t spoken to in years—_

\---

“You realize,” Dr. Van Waals says, leaning forward intently, “that sounds insane.” He looks a bit like a predator trying to coax his prey into his mouth. “Flipping between two worlds when you sleep. It’s—it’s completely insane.”

“So you’ve said,” Wes says dryly, picking up the stress ball from the coffee table. It’s yellow with a big smiley face and Wes gets great satisfaction squishing the big stupid smile out of shape.

Dr. Van Waals holds out his hands. “Well, obviously, one of the worlds is a dream.”

“Obviously,” Wes repeats flatly, switching hands. He’s not so deluded to think both worlds are real—clearly he’s having some sort of psychotic break.

Wes is pretty sure he should be more bothered by that than he actually is.

“So we’ll stop the dream,” the doctor says, sounding pleased with himself. “There are pills, hypnosis—dream therapy is a very big thing right now. We’ll take care of it.”

“Sure,” Wes agrees without conviction. “Just one thing. Which world is real?”

Dr. Van Waals’s enthusiasm stops in its tracks. “Which one…why, _this_ is the real world, of course.”

Wes just smiles thinly and squeezes the stress ball extra hard. “That’s what the other doctor said.”

\---

Once a week, times two, Wes goes to therapy. Technically, he was cleared for duty several weeks ago, but his therapist (both of them) signed off on one condition—they wouldn’t tell the captain about his dreams, so long as he continued seeing them.

This could very well lose him his job if it gets out, so he goes.

On Thursdays, on days he wears a blue bracelet, Travis drives him to Dr. Ryan’s office and sits outside until he’s done. Dr. Ryan is very patient and nice enough. She believes the dreams are important and encourages him to look for symbolism. She believes he’s in the first stage of grieving, denial, and that if he accepts the dreams and internalizes them, then he can start to move on and heal.

On Tuesdays, on days when he wears a red bracelet, he drives to Dr. Van Waals’s office, and after, Alex is waiting and they go out for dinner. Dr. Van Waals is intense and unorthodox, and Wes doesn’t really like him but he is, according to Alex, the best. He also believes that Wes is in denial, but he feels the only way to move on is to cut off the dream entirely, to shut it out and live in just one reality.

Wes doesn’t disagree with either of them. There was an accident, he lost one of the two people he loves most, and now he’s delusional, creating a separate world where he can still have them both at his side. Denial isn’t the only problem he’s got here.

Wes is willing to eliminate the dream world. Somehow it’s _more_ painful to live like this, having both of them but not at the same time. If he’d just lost one of them, he could close his eyes and take deep breaths and slowly learn to move on.

This way…this way just kills him a little more inside. Every morning it’s like losing them all over again, because he spends his days with one and wakes up to another.

But both worlds feel absolutely real. One of them is a dream but the details don’t fade, they stay as sharp and as fresh in his memories as though he actually lived them. He can’t remember which world came first, and he can’t use his senses to figure out the dream because his senses tell him both worlds are real.

Maybe both worlds are a dream. Maybe he’s the one who died, and this is his eternal torment, flipping between one world and another, suffering the loss of his wife and his partner by never really losing them at all.

\---

_Travis leans in between the seats to change the channel, and Wes changes it back without looking. Travis just clucks his tongue. “Man, this jazz sucks, let’s listen to something with a beat.”_

_“We’re not changing the channel.”_

_“Come on, you’re the only one who like this stuff.”_

_“This is not a democracy, Travis. And even if it was, you’d be losing. Alex likes jazz.”_

_“Do you?” Travis cranes his head to look at Alex. “Do you like jazz, Alex?”_

_“I am not getting in the middle of his conversation,” Alex says, laughter in her voice, and Travis turns back and says, “See, she hates it, let’s listen to something else, Wes.”_

\---

For the most part, aside from jumping between two worlds, his days go as they used to. He wakes up. He goes to work. He solves cases. He comes home.

The only difference is who he works with, and who he comes home to.

Sometimes, he can almost pretend things are normal.

\---

“You’ve got a case,” Sutton announces, tossing a file onto Wes’s desk. “An arson down in Montgomery Heights.”

“An arson.” Travis lunges over the desk, grabbing the file before Wes can. “Isn’t that usually Property Crimes?”

“Clearly, if he’s giving it to us, there’s a dead body involved,” Wes says dryly, snatching the file back. He then proceeds to hit his partner in the head with it. “Idiot.”

“Wes is right,” the captain says in a voice that bemoans, _God save me from fools_. “You’ll be working with Property Crimes on this one. The body coincides with their case.” He makes a shooing motion with his hands. “Go on. Everything is in the file; you’ll get the rest when you get there.”

Travis bounces to his feet, snatching the file once more. Wes just rolls his eyes and grabs his jacket, following his partner out the door.

\---

The thing about working with Travis is that, for most of the day, Wes can pretend that nothing’s changed. Oh, sure, sometimes Travis will give him worried looks when he thinks Wes isn’t looking, and occasionally he’ll say something like, “How’re you doing, partner?” or even, “Are you okay?”

But otherwise, it’s normal. They banter, they bicker. So long as they’re talking about work, it’s like nothing has changed.

Right up until the end of the day, when Travis follows him home, and then Wes remembers all too keenly how different things are now.

\---

The house used to be a cozy little two-story bungalow. Now it’s a blackened mess, the right half fallen in, the left half barely standing. A uniform at the front hands them two pairs of blue booties for their shoes.

Travis wrinkles his nose, balancing awkwardly on one foot as he tries to slip the bootie on. “Man, I hate arsons. I hate the stupid little booties they make us wear. I hate the ash that gets everywhere. And every time I’m around burnt bodies I really want barbeque.”

Wes slips his booties on with hardly any trouble and stares in disgust at his partner. “That’s disgusting. You’re sick in the head.”

“It’s not my fault, Wes! It’s not like I can help it!”

Wes shakes his head and goes inside, leaving Travis to struggle with his remaining bootie.

He steps carefully around burnt timbers and broken pieces of wall, following the path in the ash. Another uniform directs him to the back, where the guy from Property Crimes is. Wes thanks her and continues inside.

The body is curled in the corner, a blackened husk that’s hardly recognizable as a person anymore. The Property Crimes guy is standing nearby, directing cops around the room. Familiarity niggles in the back of Wes’s brain, but he can’t place why.

He lingers in the doorway, not wanting to intrude on another guy’s case. Simple courtesy, that, and it’ll make up for the way Travis will barge right in when he gets in here. He clears his throat.

The other detective turns, and Wes’s eyes widen.

“Paekman.”

The other male completes his turn, a puzzled smile on his face. “Sorry, do I know you?”

Wes’s hand goes to the bracelet on his wrist, and he licks his lips. “Um, no. Sorry. I…I’m Travis’s partner.”

The detective’s eyes light up. “You must be Wes!” He crosses the room, holding out his hand. “Travis talks about you all the time. It’s nice to meet you.”

Wes stares at the outstretched hand and swallows, and slowly reaches out.

\---

He came up in the break room and held out his hand, and the first thing he said was, “I’m your new partner. My name’s David Paek, but you can call me Paekman.”

The second thing he said was, “I’m sorry about your loss,” which grated because Wes was _so very tired_ of being given condolences.

The third thing he said was, “I knew Travis. He was a good guy,” and Wes had to clench his mug to keep from punching Paekman in the face.

He’s gotten used to it, for the most part. Paekman is a good detective, and he’s a good guy—kind, funny, and very easy-going, and Wes thinks eventually they’ll probably be great friends.

Every day Wes fiddles with the red bracelet around his wrist and tries not to resent Paekman for not being Travis. After all, he reminds himself, he gets to see Travis as soon as he falls asleep.

Some days, the reasoning even works.

\---

“So some people are the same between the worlds,” Dr. Van Waals asks, making notes.

Wes shrugs, tossing the stress ball between his hands. “Some people are. Some people are the same, but in different roles.”

“Like who?”

Like Paekman, who in one world became his partner, filling the hole that wouldn’t be there except for some strange twist of fate. Or who, in the other world, stayed in Property Crimes, because Travis didn’t die and a space never opened up.

And then some people are exactly the same. Like Captain Sutton, who still strolls through the department spouting Zen nonsense and leading people in meditation exercises. In both worlds, he’s given Wes books on how to work through his grief and learn to accept what happened, although in one world he also gave Wes a water fountain for his desk, and in the other he got Wes a houseplant.

Like Jonelle, who still is snarky and sharp-witted and sits and eats lunch with Wes when he wants to get away from the world for a little while. Like Kate and Amy, who still toss teasing comments his way, while simultaneously patting his shoulder sympathetically, and Wes thinks he should be annoyed but it’s kind of nice, knowing they care no matter what world he’s in.

And then some things are _completely_ different.

“Like what?” Dr. Ryan asks at the next session, neatly folding her hands in front of her.

Wes crosses his legs and stares over her head.

Like Ellen, who was dating Travis before he died, and now gets teary whenever he goes to her for information. She has trouble looking at him, and it’s usually just easier to send Paekman instead. Like Kendall, who came in because Ellen was dating Travis, but quit because four days after Alex’s funeral Travis broke up with her and she wasn’t happy about it.

Like the barista at the coffee shop down the street. In the red world, she’s a brunette with a piercing in her eyebrow, and she gives him a sweet smile when she hands him his coffee, like she can see his pain written on his face and just wants to alleviate it. In the blue world, he’s a blonde young man with thick glasses who doesn’t talk much and spends most of his time studying law texts.

And that, _that_ Wes doesn’t understand, because everyone else, their roles shifted or changed depending on whether Alex or Travis died, and that makes _sense_. But the barista at the coffee shop? Wes’s tragedy should have no influence there, so there should be no difference, but there _is_.

It’s that sort of thing that sometimes make it hard to keep track. Because sometimes things are the same, but sometimes they’re just different.

“Well,” Dr. Ryan says genially. “That’s what the journals are for.”

\---

“There have been a series of arsons,” Paekman says, stepping out of the way as a photographer moves past. “Four so far, in our jurisdiction, and two in the next one over. They’re typically foreclosed houses, abandoned buildings, and one car that was left in a vacant lot. But this—” He waves a hand, encompassing the charred room they’re standing in. “This is the first time someone’s died.”

Wes makes a note in his journal as Travis asks, “How can you know they’re all done by the same perp?”

“Same accelerant,” Paekman answers instantly. “Unfortunately, it’s just regular gasoline, so that’s not too helpful, but it’s poured in the same sort of starburst pattern so we’re pretty sure it’s all the same person. Or group.”

Wes carefully logs this detail too.

The dream journal was something Dr. Ryan suggested, a way to keep track of things happening between worlds so he could analyze it later and try to figure out which world was real. Mostly, Wes just uses the journal to keep track of the cases he’s working on in the various worlds. He’s got double the case load, and it would be monumental to try and remember every detail of every case if he didn’t have some way to catalog what was happening.

“No one has seen anything to give us a clue to the perpetrators?” he asks. “Nothing suspicious before the time of the arson?”

Paekman shrugs. “In this neighborhood? Even if they saw something, they wouldn’t talk to us.”

Travis makes a face. “Point.”

“What about the cameras at the bodega across the street?” Wes points over his shoulder with his pen, back towards the road. “Have you checked to see if they caught anything?”

“I was gonna head over as soon as we were done here.” Paekman turns to the crime scene guys, questioning. The techs wave their hands, and Paekman turns back to Wes and Travis. “Shall we go?”

“Yes _please_.” Travis doesn’t even hesitate, turning towards the front door.

Wes recalls the barbeque comment and snickers, following his partner out. Paekman is right on his heels.

\---

The bodega owner is more than happy to help, letting them pile into the back office to review the tapes. There’s not a lot on them, just some grainy video of last night’s customers.

But then they get lucky. One of the cameras, right about the estimated time of the arson, catches video of three young men walking into the bodega, heads down and faces turned away from the camera. That’s suspicious no matter how you look at it.

There’s not much on the tape, but the bodega owner remembers the young men leaving, and then a little while later he noticed the fire across the street. It’s somewhere to start.

Wes makes a note of the timestamp in the corner (11:25 PM) and asks for a copy of the tape and ignores the cold ball of unease in his gut.

It probably doesn’t mean a thing.

\---

The timestamp is enough to have them looking at other cameras in the area, on the off-chance they get lucky. And they do—a camera caught a photo of a van running a red light, minutes after the arson started, and the photo is clear enough to match the driver as one of the young men in the bodega.

A little digging turns up that the van is stolen. Unfortunately, the hood on the driver obscures his face, so they can’t get any facial recognition from it. Still. It’s something. 

It’s not much. But it’s better than nothing.

\---

Travis sends about ten texts during the first fifteen minutes of lunch. Wes recognizes that sign. It means Travis has met a girl somewhere, and they haven’t had their first date yet but they’re in the flirty going-to-go-out-soon stage. And normally, that would annoy Wes, because it usually means Travis has found an as-of-yet-unknown eligible female somewhere in the precinct who is willing to go out with him, which never ends well.

Today, Wes can’t find it in himself to get upset.

“Who is she?” he asks after another five minutes have passed.

Travis glances up. “Hmm?”

Wes nods towards Travis’s phone. “The girl you’re texting. Who is she?”

Travis sets his phone down so fast it’s like he’s been burned. “No one, man, it’s nothing,” and something clenches in Wes’s chest. It doesn’t matter who she is, he realizes, because Travis won’t go there. Not right now. Probably not for a long time.

Because of Wes.

Wes looks down at his sandwich, picking at the crust. “You don’t have to stop your life on my account, Travis,” he says quietly. “You can go out with her. I swear I won’t eat my gun if you take your eyes off me for one night.”

Travis stiffens in the corner of his eye, and his voice is strained when he says, “Man, don’t even joke about that, it’s really not helping.”

Wes takes a breath, musters half a smile, and looks up. “Travis. I’m fine. I’m not made of glass.”

_I’m fine, Travis. I’m not grieving like you think I am, because I’m stuck in time. I close my eyes and my wife isn’t dead, so how can I grieve the way you think I should? I’m not depressed because I still have her, and everything is okay, as okay as it ever will be again. Don’t stop your life for me, because I’ve stopped enough for both of us and you deserve to do whatever you want to be happy._

He doesn’t say any of that, because he may have lost his mind after the accident but he’s not _stupid_.

Instead he says, a touch desperately, “Travis, go out tonight.” Because if Travis can go out and have his normal little life while Wes’s falls apart…well, that’s pretty par for the course.

Travis just smiles gently, and his eyes are worried, and he says, “So I was thinking, _Mission Impossible_. You, me, popcorn.”

Wes doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry or hit something, so he does nothing and looks back down at his food.

\---

Every evening, after they finish their paperwork and call it a night, Travis climbs into Wes’s passenger seat and talks the entire drive home. Wes’s home, because Travis refuses to leave Wes alone at night, like somehow being in an empty house full of memories will be enough to drive Wes right over the edge. 

It started at the funeral. Wes was too numb to do much more than stand there, so Travis bundled him into the car and poured him onto the couch and found some tea in the back of a cupboard and made it. (Badly. Sometimes Wes can still taste it when he thinks about that day, when the grief rises up and he can’t quite hang on until he falls asleep, and the tears well in his eyes and he tastes the bitter, too-strong brew on the back of his tongue.)

Travis brought Wes home after the funeral, and he’s stayed ever since, sleeping on the couch. After the first week, Wes offered Travis the guest room, with an actual real bed and everything, but Travis waved him off, saying _no no, it’s just temporary, I’ll be out of your hair in no time._

All these months later and the sheets on the couch have become a permanent fixture.

Wes tells himself that he should kick Travis out. He’s perfectly fine on his own, he’s capable of taking care of himself, and he’s no longer at that point where he’s afraid he’ll hurt himself in some way, so no one else should be either.

But he doesn’t. If he’s being honest with himself, it’s a comfort. Because every other morning, Wes wakes up to an empty bed, and the realization hits him like a Mack truck in the chest. Alex is gone and dead, but if Wes gets up and goes downstairs Travis will be there and he won’t be alone.

It’s not perfect, but it’s better than waking up in an empty house.

\---

True to his word, Travis puts on _Mission Impossible_ after dinner, and even though it’s almost eleven when the credits finally roll, Wes is only a little annoyed. He climbs to his feet, stretching, and says, “The bowls had better be in the dishwasher in the morning or I’ll never cook for you again.”

Travis rolls his eyes and laughs, gathering the popcorn bowls in his hands as he stands. “Whatever, man, you can’t resist me. I’m like a giant puppy. I got these big eyes and no one can say no.”

“I say no,” Wes protests, “I say no all the time.”

It’s banter, easy and light, and if it weren’t happening at eleven PM in his living room things would almost be normal.

Wes shakes his head of the thoughts and heads for the stairs.

“Night, Wes,” Travis calls from the kitchen. “Sweet dreams.”

Wes pauses, hand on the rail. He hasn’t told Travis about the other world, about waking up to his wife. Because it could be a dream. Or maybe this is the dream. He’s not sure which, and he’s not sure it matters. He’s not holding back because he can’t figure out which world is real.

He just doesn’t want to look crazy in front of his partner.

He wishes he _could_ tell Travis, the way he spills everything to his therapists. Because then he could say _Look, I’m fine, go live your life, nothing’s wrong because I still have her, don’t you see?_

But that would just lead to psych evals and probably suspension, and Travis would look at him with that worried/scared/protective look he’s perfected these last few months, and Wes just couldn’t handle that. Not from _Travis_.

So all he says is, “You too, Trav,” and heads upstairs. He gets ready on autopilot, changing and brushing his teeth without thinking about anything, and then he’s lying in bed, staring at the ceiling and listening to Travis move downstairs.

He wishes he could tell Travis.

But he can’t, because that would mean everything falls apart even more than it already has.

Wes sighs and closes his eyes.

\---

_“Oh, oh, turn it up!” Travis leans forward, stretching as far as the seatbelt will allow him, which is not quite far enough to reach the radio dial. Luckily, Alex is the obliging sort, so she cranks the volume, and Wes groans._

_“Aw yeah, this is my jam! Just a small-town girl,” Travis croons along with Journey. “Come on, guys, I know you know every word—lonely world, she took the midnight train going aaaaanyyyywheeeere!”_

_By the third line, Alex is singing along with him, and Wes just shakes his head at their foolishness. “You guys are ridiculous!” he shouts, the corner of his mouth turning up despite himself._

_“You just have no soul!” Travis retorts, doing half-aborted dance-like motion with his hands._

_Wes laughs, glancing over at Alex to find her beaming at him, eyes sparkling, backlit by lights like a halo—_

_—headlights of another car, coming right toward them, and he—_

\---

Wes opens his eyes. His alarm squawks at him, and as he reaches out, the red band on his wrist matches the LED numbers on the clock. He’s gotten used to this now—it only takes a second to orient himself before he rolls over and presses a gentle kiss to Alex’s temple.

“Morning.”

She blinks sleepily at him, a lazy smile curling her lips. “Morning.” She reaches above her head, languidly stretching, and Wes takes a minute to watch her. She’s beautiful and wonderful, and every other day Wes is so very grateful he still has her.

She sees him watching and bats his arm. “Stop staring and get ready for work,” she demands, but her eyes are sparkling, and Wes takes that as a challenge.

“I’ve left a cushion,” he growls, playfully pouncing, and she squeals and they’re both laughing and it feels like they haven’t laughed together in a long time.

Wes wouldn’t say he’s _lucky_ , all things considered. But he’s got it better than most.

\---

In the other world, the hardest part of the day is waking up in a lonely bedroom, the other half of the bed empty and cold. The ache hits most strongly then, a tearing hole in his chest and he can’t move for a few minutes until it fades to a bearable ache.

In this world, the hardest moment is right before he heads into work, standing in the doorway looking across the room, because in the hallway he could maybe pretend for a second that the dark head bent over his partner’s desk was Travis but it’s not, it’s not and it never will be, not here, and Wes has to grip his red bracelet and take a few breaths before he can walk up with any sense of normalcy.

“Hey, Paekman.”

Paekman glances up, the corners of his eyes crinkling with a smile. “Hey, Wes. I grabbed you a bagel on my breakfast run this morning. Hope you like sesame seeds.”

Wes ignores the ache in his chest and the little voice in the back of his head that screams _Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!_ and smiles as he picks up the little white bag. “Thanks, Paekman.”

Paekman isn’t Travis. He’s almost getting used to it.

\---

“Victor Morris,” Paekman recites from the file as they step into the crime scene. “Co-partner of a low-level shipping company. Cleaning lady found him when she came in. M.E. estimates time of death to be around four or five this morning.”

Wes steps carefully over fallen papers and a broken lamp. “Whoever did it was clearly looking for something. Any idea if they found it?”

“Partner couldn’t tell if anything had been taken,” Paekman says, moving around the other side of the desk. The body is gone, but the bloodstains remain, splattered across the chair and wall where two .38 bullets had gone through Victor Morris’s skull. Taking care not to touch the blood, the detectives begin going through the items on the desk.

Wes finds a shipping manifest, with one page ripped out. “I’ll see if the partner can print this off again,” he decides, making a note. The murderer was probably the one who tore it out, hiding _something_ from anyone who might come looking.

Paekman finds a notepad under a half-buried phone. “Check it out.” He holds up the pad, tilting it. “You can almost see the indents where he pressed his pen too hard.” He grins, eyes bright, and grabs a pencil. “Hang on, I saw this in the Hardy Boys once.”

With the pencil held at an angle, Paekman runs it across the paper, lightly shading so the indentations stand out in stark relief. Wes bites back the pang in his chest and doesn’t think, _Travis would do that_ , and goes to stand beside Paekman.

“ ‘Bear #25’,” he reads, brow furrowing. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Paekman mimicks his expression. “I have no idea.”

\---

They don’t find anything else in the office. Morris’s partner is all too happy to print off a new copy of the shipping manifest, but there are two dozen lines on the page and no indication which one the murderer might be trying to hide. Unfortunately, without more to go on, they can’t get a warrant to go through the shipping containers.

So they go to interview Morris’s wife.

“He seemed upset,” she tells them, seated on her couch with an untouched cup of tea before her. “Something at work. He wouldn’t tell me what, just that it wasn’t supposed to happen and he was going to take care of it.” She sniffs, but she doesn’t cry. “Do you think that’s why someone killed Victor?”

“We’ll look into it,” Wes promises.

Movement to his right catches his eye, and he turns. A young girl is standing there in purple dinosaur pajamas, clutching a stuffed bear to her chest. The bear is wearing a tiny blue and white baseball cap, and a matching striped jersey.

What catches Wes’s eye is the 25 on the back of the bear’s jersey.

He nudges Paekman. He knows when Paekman sees it because he says politely, “That’s a cute bear.”

Mrs. Morris gives a soggy smile. “We’re not really sports fans, but Victor brought it home a few days ago. I guess he got it from a client?” She sighs. “Annie is eleven, so she’s a little too old for stuffed animals, but she’s been clinging to it ever since we heard the news, and I haven’t had the heart to take it away.”

Wes feels a frisson of something run down his spine, unease or worry or fear. He doesn’t have to check his notes to know why; he recognizes those numbers.

At 11:25, three young men were caught on camera in a bodega minutes before a house was set on fire. And now, an eleven-year-old girl is holding a bear wearing a 25.

Wes doesn’t know what it means, but he’s not sure he likes the coincidence.

Paekman, oblivious to Wes’s observation, turns to smile at the girl. “That’s a very nice bear,” he murmurs, voice pitched to lull small children in that special way Wes never quite managed to perfect. (it’s just like Travis, no don’t think about that). “Did your daddy give it to you?”

Annie shrugs.

“He didn’t _give_ it to her,” Mrs. Morris explains. “It was just sitting on his desk, and when we got the news…well, what harm can a stuffed bear do?”

Wes and Paekman exchange a look. “Can I see the bear, sweetie?” Paekman asks, holding out a hand. The girl shrinks back. “Please, just for a minute.”

Mrs. Morris may not know what they’re thinking, but she picks up the undertone. “Annie, please let the detectives see your bear.”

Annie shoots her mother a twisted, heartbroken look, but she shuffles forward and drops the bear into Paekman’s hand, retreating to her mother’s side. Paekman turns the bear, studying it thoroughly. Wes does his best to smile reassuringly at the two women—something he’s pretty sure he’s only half successful at, because he was never really any good at this sort of thing.

Finally, Paekman makes a vaguely triumphant noise in his throat, and he turns the bear so Wes can see. One of the arms is ripped, under the little jersey, and Wes can see fluffy white stuffing.

He can also see the shine of plastic.

“Well, well,” he murmurs, pulling a glove out of his pocket because he’s fastidious like that. He pinches the glimmer of plastic and carefully eases it out of the bear, resulting in a small bag of white powder sitting in his palm.

The two detectives stare at the bag, leaning their heads close. “This is definitely a motive for murder,” Paekman whispers, low enough so Mrs. Morris and her daughter can’t hear.

Wes smiles grimly. “This is enough for a warrant.”

\---

It’s Tuesday, so after Wes says his goodbyes to Paekman, he climbs into his car and drives halfway across town to a tall glass building. He rides fourteen stories up, then sits in a white-and-blue waiting room until his appointment. Personally, he thinks the entire thing is made to intimidate, and he much prefers Dr. Ryan’s office in the small brick building, off in the other world, but it’s not like he can ask Dr. Van Waals to change his offices just because Wes doesn’t like them.

The psychiatrist’s office itself is airy, at least, with an entire wall of windows overlooking the city. Wes sits in his chair and picks up the stress ball from the table and stares out the window.

There’s the usual check in (“How are you doing?” “Fine.” “Anything change since last time I saw you?” “No.”). The doctor asks how things are going with Alex (“Alex and I are fine, no real problems there.”).

The doctor eventually leans back and asks, “And your dreams? Anything new with those?”

Wes hesitates briefly. “Actually, there is something…”

“Oh?”

Wes tells him about the numbers, about the time stamp on the security video and the little girl with the stuffed bear. “I don’t think I’ve seen something like this before,” he says. “I mean, there are similarities between worlds, sure, but nothing like this. Two separate cases that had no relation to each other, and 11 and 25 both show up? It’s not a coincidence. I just don’t know what it is.”

“Well,” Dr. Van Waals says, adjusting his glasses. “Dreams reflect reality. At the simplest level, dreams are the brain’s way of processing the events of the day.”

“Then wouldn’t that mean this world is the dream?” Wes asks facetiously. “Since I saw the numbers in the other world first.”

“Dreams can also help shape our reality,” the doctor points out. “Perhaps you had a dream, and _because_ of the dream, you noticed the numbers when you otherwise wouldn’t have.”

Wes tosses the stress ball from hand to hand. “That’s great, doc, but that doesn’t help narrow down which world is the dream, now does it? And it doesn’t explain why I felt such…misgiving about the numbers. I mean, they’re just numbers!”

The doctor stares at him for a long minute, long enough Wes wants to squirm. He doesn’t. He’s had more than enough practice staring people down. He just meets the doctor’s gaze head-on and doesn’t flinch.

Dr. Van Waals sighs, slowly rising and moving to his desk. “Do you know what this is?” he asks, pulling a thin file out of a drawer.

Wes shrugs noncommittally.

“It’s an accident report.” The doctor flips open the file, and Wes feels a shiver of unease run through him. “On October 3rd, at 11:25 PM, there was a fatal accident on Seaside Boulevard—”

_—the impact shatters glass, and he feels like he can see every glittering mote fly by Alex’s head, shining in the headlights of the other car, and their own car lurches and tumbles away, and it’s all he can do to hold on, hold on, hold on and they spin and he reaches for his wife but the back of his skull hits the window and everything goes dark—_

“Stop!”

Wes doesn’t realize he’s shouted until the doctor falls silent, watching him. He’s risen from his seat, the stress ball falling to the ground, and he’s sweating. He feels like he’s going to be sick. He stares at the doctor, a furious anger rushing through him, and he just wants to hit something. But mostly he just wants to hide away somewhere and bury his head in the sand and shut the world out.

His fingers curl into fists, and his hands tremble. “Stop. Just…stop.”

He hates how small and shaky his voice sounds. What’s worse is the gentleness in the doctor’s eyes as he puts the file away.

“It doesn’t matter which world you saw the numbers in first, Wes,” Dr. Van Waals says, easing himself back into his chair. Wes remains standing, feeling too brittle to even move or he’ll shatter into a million pieces. “It doesn’t matter which world is reflecting the other. The fact of the matter is, you already have negative association with those numbers, whether you knew it or not. And because of that association, whether in dream or reality, you feel afraid when you see them, in any combination. It’s as simple as that.”

Simple as that, he says, but he’s not the one flipping between worlds and feeling sick and afraid when he sees a pair of numbers. _Simple_ , and it’s not funny in the slightest, but Wes just wants to laugh.

\---

The first time Wes climbed into a car after the accident, he had a flashback so intense he threw up in his lap. The first time he _drove_ a car, he almost got into an accident of his own when a car came at him from the right and he jerked the wheel to avoid it.

He’s better, now, for the most part, though he still has a moment of fear when he first starts the car. He can’t drive at night, and he only listens to CDs now because if he hears even a few notes of “Don’t Stop Believing” play, even in a commercial, his hands start sweating and his chest goes tight and he’s back on that tiny stretch of road again.

When he could drive again, for the most part, Wes bought a Range Rover. It’s not exactly a tank, but it’s the closest he can get, and it’s a lot bigger than most other vehicles on the road. When Wes is inside it, he feels…not _safe_ exactly, he’s not sure he’ll ever feel safe in a car again, but _secure_.

His doctors use words like _trauma_ and _PTSD_ , which are probably not inaccurate, but Wes is getting by. 

This is just one more thing to add to the list.

\---

As is typical, Alex is waiting in the lobby when Wes emerges from Dr. Van Waals’s office. She stands as he comes out, arms outstretched, and while he doesn’t exactly fall into her embrace, he sinks into it without hesitation, taking comfort in her presence. Therapy is always hard, forcing him to revisit and relive things he simply doesn’t want to think about, but it’s worse on days like today when flashbacks are included.

Alex doesn’t even ask, just holds him until he releases her. She’s so wonderfully caring and supportive, and Wes doesn’t know where he’d be without her. (Yes he does. Without her, he’d be leaning on Travis’s shoulder in an exhausted slump, his partner supporting him without a word, but it’s not the same.)

“A client told me about this new Italian place,” she murmurs, sliding her arm into his and leading the way to the elevators. “I thought we could try it out.” 

Alex does most of the talking on the way to the restaurant, because Wes talks enough in the therapy sessions and she completely understands that he needs time to regroup a little. So she talks about work and what she had for lunch and oh, she was thinking of maybe putting a new stain on the bathroom cabinets, what does Wes think about a dark color, and maybe they could also update the fixtures a little, maybe something brushed or chrome?

Wes closes his eyes and lets the cadence of her words wash over him, a soothing lullaby that eases the residual tension from the session. By the time they get to the restaurant, Wes has almost stopped feeling wrung out and left to dry.

He joins in the conversation once they’re seated, giving her the highlights of his day. She doesn’t really like his job, but she listens politely, and it’s not like there’s much to tell, since he can’t give too many details of an ongoing case. But it’s nice, to be able to sit and talk with his wife about what happened during the day.

He doesn’t talk about his therapy session. She tried to get him to talk, right when he started going, but he shut her down in kind of a harsh way. There are some things he just doesn’t want to go into, and what goes on in Dr. Van Waals’s office is one of them.

Instead, when their entrées arrive, he looks down at his chicken and says, “I had another dream about Travis last night.”

Alex’s fork stops halfway to her mouth. “You did?” There’s an odd note to her words that Wes isn’t quite sure how to quantify. It’s something he’s heard a lot lately, though, ever since he woke up after the accident. She’s probably just worried about him. A lot of people are.

He hums a little and takes a sip of his water. “Mm-hmm. We were on our way back from a crime scene, and Travis saw this stray dog, so of _course_ he wanted to get out and pet it.” He goes on to tell the entire story, how Travis convinced him to stop and crack open one of the water bottles in the trunk for the poor creature. And the Travis made a call, and they had to wait for fifteen minutes while Travis’s foster brothers came out with a truck to pick the dog up.

He started telling her about the other world a month after the funeral. He didn’t mention that the other world felt as real as this one, of course, and he didn’t mention that sometimes when he was with Travis, this world with Alex felt like a dream. She was worried enough as it was, she didn’t need anything else to worry about.

He told her stories, little snippets of his day that were particularly _Travis_. She’d been Travis’s friend too, and he thought she might like to hear the stories. Might like to know that even if Travis wasn’t alive _here_ , he was alive and happy _somewhere_ , even if only in Wes’s dreams.

He doesn’t talk about the dreams every night. If he goes on too often or too long, her face will twist up like she’s about to cry, and Wes doesn’t ever want Alex to cry. But every so often, he’ll tell her a story.

Alex doesn’t say anything as he talks, just watches him, her eyes solemn and dark.

\---

Later, when they’re lying in bed with the lights turned off, Alex wraps an arm around his chest and asks, “Do you always dream of Travis?”

Wes stares at the darkened ceiling and thinks about lying, if only to keep her from worrying further. But he already lies about the nature of his dreams, and he doesn’t want to lie more than he has to.

“I do,” he whispers, and he waits for her to say something.

She doesn’t, just buries her face against his side and holds him tight.

Wes closes his eyes.

\---

_—pain, and fear, a crushing, terrible fear—for his wife, for his partner. Wes’s eyes snap open, and the pain lances through him but he turns his head._

_Alex is unconscious, dangling limp from her seatbelt like a rag doll. The airbag gave her a bloody nose that will quickly swell into a pair of black eyes, and her hair is covered in glass. He can’t tell if she has any more injuries, but the car hit the door, ran right into it, she could be so hurt and he can’t do anything to help her…_

_He tries to twist around, to see the back, but something in his shoulder/back/spine screams at him, and he freezes. Spots dance in front of his eyes, but he grits his teeth and blinks them away. He looks in the rearview instead, shattered but still mostly intact._

_Travis is collapsed against the door, face slack and covered in cuts from the glass and blood from his wounds. His shoulder is dislocated and his forearm looks broken and he didn’t have an airbag to keep his head from crashing into something so he’s got a ragged gash in his forehead from where his skull met the window._

_“Alex,” he groans, fumbling numb fingers at the seatbelt clasp. Something clicks, but the seatbelt doesn’t release. “Travis. Wake up. You gotta…you gotta wake up.”_

_They don’t wake up, and the radio keeps playing on._

_“Strangers waiting…Up and down the boulevard…”_

\---

Wes opens his eyes and slowly exhales. His hand comes out and turns off the alarm before it even starts ringing, and for a long minute he just lays there, watching the red numbers.

Finally, he shakes his head, sits up, and gets ready for work.

\---

“So I was thinking,” Travis says, gesturing grandly with a donut in hand.

“That’s never a good sign,” Wes retorts, taking a bite out of his bagel.

“Shut up. So I was thinking, if our arsonists used a stolen car to set this fire, then maybe they used stolen cars at the other fires too, to cover their trail. And _maybe_ we’ll get lucky and find something there.”

Paekman, who was invited by Travis for this morning’s breakfast brainstorming session, nods thoughtfully. “That’s actually a solid plan. A lot of the places were residential, so I don’t know if we’ll get anything there, but it doesn’t hurt to try.”

“It’s a start, at least,” Wes grumbles, which is as much of an acknowledgement of Travis’s bright idea as he’ll give.

Travis just grins. “Then let’s get to work,” he says, and shoves half his donut into his mouth, and he ignores Wes’s dirty glare.

\---

“The work helps,” Wes told his therapist, back when they were still evaluating him to see if he was fit for active duty. “It keeps me focused. Keeps me from thinking too much.”

“Is that a problem?” Dr. Ryan asked, watching him with those eyes that could see right through him. “Thinking too much?”

Wes shifted and studied the painting behind her head. “It can be, sometimes.” Sometimes he sunk into his own head and he didn’t come out. He went over the same thing again and again, the what-ifs and the could-have-beens and should-have-dones until he burned himself out.

If he sank into it now, if he focused and obsessed about his loss and the dreams and the insanity his life had become, he would get stuck. 

In another chair, in another office, in another life, Dr. Van Waals leaned forward and said, “You know that’s just another form of denial, right? Just like your dreams.”

To which Wes just smiled thinly and dug his thumbs into the eyes of the smiling little stress ball. “Denial or no, doctor, my mind is a messy place right now. I don’t need to get stuck there. And the work helps.”

(Sometimes, Wes wonders if that confession wasn’t part of the reason they signed off on his return.)

\---

Travis’s idea pans out. One of the arsons was an abandoned car in a vacant lot. Mere minutes after the fire started, a nearby traffic camera caught a photo of a van running a red light. The van was stolen, and there’s just enough of the driver’s face to get a sketch.

Wes turns the composite sketch to show Travis and Paekman, and he grins. “We can work with this.”

\---

The sketch is a match for Duncan Milligan, and three hours later he’s sitting in interrogation. He’s a punk twenty-year-old kid who thinks he’s tough, but he keeps glancing at the mirrored window and sweating. His baby-faced public defender seems just as nervous, shuffling his papers again and again like this is his first case. Maybe it is.

Wes, sitting across from him, flips through a folder, clicking his tongue. “Duncan, Duncan. This is quite the juvie record you’ve got. B&E, vandalism, assault, assault with a deadly weapon, assault and battery… I’m amazed you’ve made it two years without getting thrown in jail.”

Travis hops up on Duncan’s side of the table, grinning down at the kid. “Well, that’s just because he hasn’t gotten caught, isn’t that right?”

“You don’t have to answer that,” the public defender says. Duncan just clenches his hands and glances uneasily at the mirror again.

Paekman, beside Wes, pulls the folder in front of him. “You’re right, Wes, this _is_ quite a record.” Then he grins, a sharp, wicked sort of smile, and Wes has an inkling to why he and Travis are such good friends. “And now we can add arson, grand theft auto, and manslaughter to the list.”

Duncan stiffens. “I didn’t kill no one!” he snaps, the first words he’s said all day.

Travis leans in with a predator’s grin. “So you’re admitting to the arson and GTA, then?”

“That’s not what I—” Duncan shifts nervously, sweating profusely now. “I didn’t kill no one,” he repeats, a little weaker this time.

“Duncan, I’d advise you to stop talking,” the defender says, shuffling his papers and swallowing. 

Paekman leans in, sweetly intent and sincere and radiating the sort of aura a person can just trust. “Look, Duncan, we’re not the bad guys here. We want to help you. But first, you have to help us.”

The kid and the defender lean together, and a furious round of whispering occurs. The detectives politely turn their heads away. Finally, the defender nods and sits up.

“Drop the manslaughter charge and my client will talk,” he says, which is pretty big talk for a brand new public defender. Wes shares a look with his coworkers and works to hide his grin. They’ve got him now.

“We’ll _talk_ to the DA about dropping the manslaughter charge,” he says, taking the lead when Travis and Paekman don’t jump in. Another round of furious whispering occurs. More nods, and then the kid slumps back in his chair.

“What do you want to know?”

\---

Duncan tells them what happened. “My friends and I used to hang out, burn papers in trash cans and stuff. No big deal. And then this guy came, Jackson.”

“Jackson what?” Wes asked, pen poised.

The kid shrugged. “Just Jackson. No one ever calls him anything else. Anyway, he came up one day, asked if we were happy tossing scraps into the trash. Said we could get a better burn other places. Most of my friends bowed out, but me and my buddy Ricky, we said sure, we’ll see what he’s got.”

“So he took us out, and there was this old house, and Jackson says we were gonna burn it down. Ricky and I, we weren’t too sure about it, but there was no one inside and Jackson said the place was gonna be torn down anyway. It was almost like a public service. So we lit it up. And it…” Duncan sighs, eyes going misty. “It burned, and it was _fantastic_. The best burn I’ve ever seen.”

Travis coughs sharply, drawing Duncan out of his reverie. “What happened next?”

Duncan shrugs. “Then we did it some more. A few more houses, a car. Then there was the house the other night. Ricky and I, we didn’t know someone died until we saw it on the news. Jackson went in the back, spread the gas there.” Duncan runs his hands over his face, lets out a shaky breath. “I swear, we didn’t mean to kill anyone. No one was supposed to get hurt.”

The detectives share a look. Duncan and his friend may not have meant to kill anyone, but it sounds like this Jackson did.

“Do you know where we can find Jackson?” Paekman asks, leaning forward congenially. “Where he lives, or where he hangs out?”

“There’s, uh, this place on Wicker Street. House 1412. It’s been abandoned for years, so I guess he took it over.” Duncan lifts his head, staring imploringly at them. “You’ll really talk to the DA for me?”

“We’ll do our best,” Travis promises.

\---

With a little more information from Duncan, they get a description of Jackson. That in hand, they gather a few officers and head out to 1412 Wicker Street.

Abandoned for years doesn’t even begin to cover it. The place looks like it’s been condemned, grass growing wild and long and the paint peeling. If Wes is any judge, there’s something wrong with the foundation, too, because it seems like the whole house is listing to one side.

Wes isn’t sure why anyone would want to walk into this tetanus shot waiting to happen. On the other hand, if you were looking for a place to hang out without people coming upon you, this would be a good place to go.

Paekman heads around back with two of the officers. Travis and Wes flank the front door, the remaining two officers hanging back behind them.

“So,” Travis says conversationally, “We don’t _know_ that this guy’s armed, but he let someone burn to death, so I think it’s pretty safe to assume he’s a bad guy. Let’s go in prepared, yeah?”

“Sounds like a plan to me. On three.” They put their hands on their guns and Wes counts. “One…two…threesie!”

Travis happily kicks the rotting door down, and they go bursting in. Wes can hear Paekman and his cadre of officers doing the same in the back.

They move from room to room, clearing the first floor in moments. Paekman finds a basement door and leads his team down. Travis takes one of the officers and heads upstairs. The remaining officer mans the front door, while Wes moves through the living room.

There’s clear evidence that someone has been here a while. Fast food wrappers on the ground, empty bottles scattered haphazardly, and cigarette stubs put out on the three-legged coffee table. There’s no evidence down here that someone is squatting, no clothing or sleeping bag, but Travis might find that upstairs. Wes starts gingerly moving food wrappers and bottles with his foot, hoping to find something that will help them find Jackson.

The back door closes.

Wes stills, gun coming up. If this is Jackson, then they need to get him now before he has a chance to run.

The floor creaks behind him. Wes turns, seeing the officer in the doorway to the hall. Wes makes a few quick hand motions, and the officer nods, heading around to the other side of the kitchen. If they can corner Jackson in the kitchen, get him before he can bolt, then they can get him down to the station and wrap this case up in no time.

Wes turns back around, and there’s a man in the doorway.

He matches the description they got for Jackson—heavyset, muscular, at least 6’3”. What Duncan’s description failed to mention was the hard glint in Jackson’s eyes, or how his face goes from surprise to sour anger in an instant, and his hand comes up.

“Don’t do it!” Wes shouts, his own hand coming up, but he’s too late, too slow, and a shot rings out—

Pain explodes in his shoulder, white-hot and burning, and Wes closes his eyes.

\---

_—there is pain, so much pain, but he keeps moving, keeps trying to get to them. “Alex,” he calls, over and over, “Travis,” but no matter how much he calls for them, they don’t respond._

_And the radio keeps singing on._

_“Don’t stop believing…”_

_“Hold onto that feeling…”_

\---

Wes’s eyes snap open, and he sits straight up. “Travis!” It comes out a strangled shout, twisting into the night air, and he’s reaching for his gun on his hip before he realizes he’s in his pajamas, in his bed at home.

He’s disoriented, dizzy, the way he hasn’t been since the beginning, and he has to turn on the beside lamp and check his wrist twice before he understands that he’s wearing a red bracelet now, not blue.

“Wes?” Alex sits up on one elbow, blinking groggily. “What is it?”

Wes’s hands are shaking, and his chest is tight. This has never happened before. It’s always been a straight progression, morning, evening, morning, evening. Every time he goes to sleep. He’s never switched worlds in the middle of the day and woken at—he checks the clock—3:47 AM. That’s not...he doesn’t know what this is.

“Wes?” Alex sounds more alert now, sitting up fully on the bed. “What’s going on?” She reaches out and rests her hand on his shoulder.

The touch is light, but it burns like a livewire. Wes jumps up. “I have to—I have to go.”

“Go? Go _where?_ It’s the middle of the night.”

“I know! That’s not—this isn’t right. I have to go.” He backs away from the bed, gasping short, panicked little breaths. “I have to go _back_.”

Maybe it’s just unconsciousness, blacking out when Jackson shot him, and that’s why he’s here. But he has to go back, because this is all wrong and Travis, he doesn’t know Jackson has a gun, what if something happens and Wes isn’t there, what if Wes loses Travis again? He can’t _handle_ losing Travis again.

“I have to go back,” he repeats, fleeing into the bathroom. He hears her moving in the bedroom, but he doesn’t pay her any mind.

When he first woke up from the accident, the doctors asked him how he was sleeping. Wes didn’t tell them about the exact nature of his dreams (that came later, when he finished going to mandatory therapy but still needed someone to talk to), but he admitted he was having some strange dreams and wasn’t sleeping very well. He ended up with two prescriptions in two worlds that he never used, but he kept them in the back of the medicine cabinet.

He still has those pills, and desperate times call for desperate measures. If it’s just unconsciousness he needs to recreate, then the pills can do that.

He pours the pills into his palm. Some scatter, thrown in his haste and by his shaking hand, but he can’t care about them. He only needs a couple of pills, just enough to knock himself out. Just enough to go back.

He brings his hand towards his mouth.

“Wes!” Alex slaps the pills out of his hand, voice shrill and panicked. “What are you doing?!” She wrests the pill bottle out of his hands while he’s still staring at the scattered pills in the sink, taking advantage of his momentary surprise.

He regains himself quickly enough, but by the time he’s turned she’s already turning the bottle over into the toilet. “Alex, no!” He lunges, reaching for her, for the bottle in her hands and the pills falling into water.

He lunges, and she staggers into the wall with a sharp, startled cry. Wes freezes, staring at her. Alex rubs her shoulder, slumped against the wall, watching him with wide eyes.

“Wes,” she whispers, sounding pained, and he did that, oh god, _he did that_ he hurt her, he never meant to hurt her he just needed to get back, he just—

He stumbles back, falling against the opposite wall. “I need…I need to go back.” It comes out numb and cold, like the hollow spot behind his sternum. He hurt her. He never meant to _hurt her_.

“Wes,” she repeats, taking a step towards him, and she moves gingerly, warily, like he’s something to be frightened of. His stomach clenches. “Wes, go _where?_ ”

“Travis,” he whispers, not quite looking at the pill bottle and not quite looking at her face but somewhere in between. Close enough he can see her expression twist. “I need to go back. Travis needs me.”

Alex snaps the bottle onto the counter, trembling. “Wes,” she says, voice cracking, “Wes, _Wes_. Travis is _dead_.”

He shakes his head, but she reaches out, grabs his cheeks and turns his head so they’re eye-to-eye. “Wes, Travis is _dead_ , and I am right here, and you are _scaring me_.” Tears make her eyes shine, but she doesn’t hesitate, just moves closer so her body is pressed against his. “Wes, I am _right here_. And I need you to be here with me too. You’re not dreaming anymore. _This_ is real. _I’m_ real, and Travis is _gone_.” She bites her lip, thumb stroking across his cheekbone. “Honey, please…”

His eyes track over to the pill bottle on the counter.

Then he looks at Alex, really looks at her, and he sees the tears in her eyes and the pain and worry etched in every line of her face. And the fear. Not _of_ him, he realizes, but _for_ him. Because she thinks he’s lost it, and he could laugh at how right she is and how little she really knows.

He needs to get back to Travis, needs to be there to help his partner.

But his wife is right here, and she’s on the verge of tears and terrified for him, and how can he leave her like this? It wouldn’t be right.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, dropping his head. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”

She pulls back, wary and hesitant. Keeps watching him, just in case. But the energy has left him, and all he feels now is shaky and weak. His knees give out, and he slides down the wall, trembling from head to toe. “Sorry. I’m sorry.”

She backs up a step and picks up the pill bottle, watching him like she expects him to jump up and attempt to grab it once more, but he just stays where he is. He doesn’t move as she upends the bottle, or as she picks up the scattered pills on the floor, or even when she scoops the last of the pills out of the sink. When she flushes the toilet, Wes just closes his eyes and hugs his knees and tells himself to stop shaking.

She moves in front of him, and he hears her sigh. He can picture her gathering her composure, wiping her eyes and squaring her shoulders as she prepares to deal with this, because apparently her husband can’t. He knows what it would look like, but he doesn’t open his eyes and see. Not just yet.

“Okay,” she declares, because maybe if she says it in a strong, authoritative voice then everything _will_ be okay. (Wes has tried that trick too many times to count. It just doesn’t work.) “Okay. I’m going to go call Dr. Van Waals. You just stay here, alright?”

She doesn’t get up until he nods, and when she does leave the room, she doesn’t go far. He can hear her in the bedroom, within visual sight of the bathroom, and the hushed, urgent tones as she calls the doctor.

Wes runs his hands over his face and takes a deep breath.

_I’m sorry, Travis. I’m sorry, Alex._

He slowly drops his forehead to his knees.

_I’m sorry. I’m so sorry._

\---

Dr. Van Waals doesn’t make house calls, but he sits on the phone for forty-five minutes with Wes, despite it being four in the morning. Alex leaves the room, understanding that this is pretty much the same as one of his therapy sessions, but Wes doubts she’s gone far—close enough to come quickly if he needs her there.

The doctor asks what happened, and slowly, Wes lays it all out: the dream, and waking up, and thinking that he just needed to go back to sleep to get back there. To be there for Travis. He wasn’t trying to kill himself, and he was sorry for scaring his wife. He just needed to go back there.

There’s a long silence on the end of the line. “Wes,” Dr. Van Waals says slowly, gently, the kind of voice people use when they fear someone is at the edge. “It was just a dream. Travis is gone.”

Wes rubs his forehead and takes a breath. “I know.” It’s how he’s been functioning. He can’t tell which world is a dream, so whichever world he wakes up in is ‘real’, and the other one is a ‘dream’. It’s been working.

But this is different. This is waking up in the middle of the night and not being there when Travis needs him.

And this is scaring his wife to tears and acting recklessly without thinking about the consequences because he can’t focus anymore. Everything is muddled, ever since the accident, and sometimes Wes doesn’t know which way is up.

He pinches the bridge of his nose. “I’m sorry,” he mumbles, and the words come out reluctant but he means them. He didn’t intend for all of this to happen. He just needed to get back to sleep.

The doctor takes a breath. “I know I just saw you yesterday,” he says in a tone that gives Wes a bad feeling. “But perhaps you should come in for another session today. I think you could use it.”

Wes sits up. “I don’t need an extra session, Doctor. I’m fine.”

“You tried to take a handful of pills because you woke up,” the doctor points out. “I don’t think that qualifies as ‘fine’.” There’s another beat of silence. 

“I’m _fine_.”

“Your mental health is my concern,” Dr. Van Waals says sharply, “Because if you go out into the field without sound mind, you put everyone you come in contact with in danger. Your dreams we can work around, so long as you know which reality you’re in at any given moment. But _this_ incident is different, and I’m not confident you can tell the difference right now.”

Wes’s stomach clenches, and he reaches for the hand sanitizer on the nightstand. Dr. Van Waals can decide his future. Wes could be put on leave, or even lose his job, based on the doctor’s word. And the doctor doesn’t know if he can trust Wes right now.

Wes will do anything to fix this. He _needs_ his job. It’s the one point of stability he has left. Without it, he’ll sit around thinking, and letting himself get lost in what’s happening is the way to true madness.

He hands his head. “Alright. When do you want to see me?”

The silence sounds surprised, like the doctor expected more of a fight. But Wes is logical to a fault, and he can see the reasoning here. He’s not going to risk his job simply because he’s stubborn.

Paper rustles. “I have an opening at five PM,” Dr. Van Waals says, and Wes scribbles himself a note.

“I’ll be there.”

\---

There’s really no point in going back to bed, so Wes sits at the table nursing a cup of coffee. Alex sits across from him, staring into her own mug as though it holds the secrets of the universe, and for a long time neither of them talk. Wes doesn’t know what to say—he’s already apologized, and Alex takes each apology in with a tired smile and Wes feels like it’s not making much of an impact.

He really has no idea what she’s thinking right now.

Eventually, Alex looks up, and she looks like she’s been awake for years, not woken at four in the morning. “Maybe,” she says slowly, spinning her mug in her hands. “Maybe you should stay at home today.”

“Do you really,” he says softly, “want me to stay home, alone, all day? After what happened this morning?”

She flinches. It’s a low blow, but he needs her to see his side of things. He can’t stay home. If he’s alone all day, he’ll just sink into his own head and get lost, and he might try something even more drastic. He hopes he’d be rational enough to get help if he got to that point, but he doesn’t know. He isn’t sure he can trust himself that far.

“I could stay with you…” she offers hesitantly, but he shakes his head sharply. It’s not fair to ask her to stay with him, not when she has her own life and job to go to. She would stay in a heartbeat if he asked, and that’s precisely the reason why he won’t.

“Work will be good,” he tells his coffee cup. “It will help stabilize me. Keep my head in the right place.”

If he’s throwing himself into his case, he doesn’t have to think about Travis in a house with a mad arsonist with a gun. He really doesn’t need to be thinking about that right now.

She bites her lip, spins her mug again. “Are you sure? Because I could call in…”

“Alex, it’s okay.” He musters up half a smile and holds out his hand. “I’m okay. It was just…I wasn’t quite awake yet. But I’m awake now, and I’ll go to work, and everything will be fine. It’s _okay_.”

She gives him a watery smile, sliding her hand into his, and they both know it’s not true, he’s not _really_ okay, but for a moment it’s easier to just pretend.

\---

“Tell me we have something,” he demands as he sinks into his chair. He feels edgy, off-kilter, and he needs something to take his mind off everything. He needs to _work_. Drumming his hands on the edge of his desk, he shifts in his seat. “Come on, Paekman, give me something.”

His partner gives him a questioning eyebrow, and Wes can understand—the manic restlessness isn’t usually his style. Sue him, he’s already had a long day and it’s barely even started. But Paekman doesn’t say anything, just holds up a familiar little package.

“We got a warrant,” he says with a grin, handing it over. Wes turns it in his hands.

“ _Finally_.”

Now they can actually _do_ something.

\---

There are twenty-five shipping containers on the missing page of the shipping manifest. Any one of them could hold their little drug-toting teddy bears. So, of course, none of the containers on the manifest list carrying any such thing.

“We get to search every one.” Paekman grimaces at the list. “Yay.”

“Knowing our luck, it’ll be the last one on the list, too,” Wes deadpans.

That just makes Paekman’s scowl deepen. “Man, don’t even _say_ that.”

That’s such a _Travis_ sort of reaction that Wes has to swallow and clutch his bracelet. 

(red bracelet, red means Alex, red means blood and family and a dozen red roses on their anniversary, red means the pulsing ache in his side because Travis isn’t there and Travis is _gone_ and dead, red means red means _red_ )

Sometimes Paekman is just too similar to Travis.

“Well, then.” He clears his throat, slowly drops his hand from his wrist. “I suppose we’d better get started.”

It’s a long day, moving back and forth across the docks to find the shipping containers in question. Then they have to break open the container and start opening boxes, searching for any teddy bears or other stuffed animals that might be carrying drugs. There are uniforms helping, and a couple of K-9 dogs to sniff through the shipping containers just in case they miss anything, but still. Still, it’s such a long day.

By the fourteenth container, Wes is exhausted. He’s not feeling well, he’s been up since the wee hours of the morning, and standing around in hot, stifling shipping containers isn’t helping anything. He thinks he’s getting a migraine, a tight pounding starting up right behind his eyes, and all he wants to do is go home and sleep for a few days. Maybe Alex was right, maybe he should have stayed home.

But hey, they only have eleven more containers to go. Awesome.

“I’m going to go get started on the next one,” Wes tells Paekman. This container is nearly done; it’s got crates and crates of bootleg DVDs, and they have to check every single crate because what if their drug-smuggling teddy bears are hiding in one, but Paekman’s only got a handful of crates left to check and he’s got it under control. And really, why didn’t they think of splitting up sooner? Get the list done in _half_ the time.

Paekman gives him an absent wave, making a gesture for the crowbar again, and Wes makes his retreat. He brings an officer and a K-9 unit with him to the next container, taking the short walk as a wonderful respite from the hot, sticky air inside the containers.

The fifteenth container is remarkably easy, just a bunch of furniture bubble-wrapped in the container. Wes tells the K-9 officer to do a walkthrough, just in case, but he doubts they’ll find anything there. If you’re going to be shipping drugs in furniture, you’re not going to pack them in stuffed animals first.

He pinches the bridge of his nose as he heads for the sixteenth container on the list, hoping to mitigate some of the migraine before it starts. They still have so many stupid containers to get through, and after all of this Wes will then have to go to another therapy session. It’s not a great idea to skip therapy in the first place, but it’s probably even worse to skip when it’s an emergency session because he’d done something reckless and stupid.

He’s got a bottle of Ibuprofen in his glove compartment, but his car is all the way on the other side of the lot. Hopefully he’ll be able to make it through the rest of the containers before his head explodes, because if it becomes a full-blown migraine then a few over-the-counter drugs won’t help anything.

He sighs as he rounds the corner, looking for the next shipping container on the list. And finds a group of men moving in the container, carrying boxes out.

Everyone freezes: Wes, the officer in his wake, the four visible men he can see in front of the container. There’s a moment of stunned silence, like everyone present is trying to process what’s happening here.

The officer is the first to react (Wes blames the headache for that), shouting “LAPD, freeze!”

Of course, the men do not freeze. Two of them, both carrying boxes, make a run for their idling truck. The other two reach for guns at their hips.

Wes reaches for his gun, but the headache and his exhaustion make him slow, and one of the men with extreme facial tattoos is already firing and he really should have stayed at home today—

The bullet races toward him. Pain explodes in his shoulder, white-hot and burning, and Wes closes his eyes.

\---

Wes opens his eyes.

Wes opens his eyes, and he sees a man in front of him. _Blink_ , and it’s Jackson, standing in the living room of an abandoned house. _Blink_ , and it’s a tattooed drug runner on the docks in the sun. _Blink, blink, blink_ , switching back and forth between men, back and forth between worlds—

There’s pain, a fire in his shoulder that explodes as the bullet tears through him, sparking up his spine and making his nerves scream. Wes has been shot before, once or twice, remembers the feeling, the tearing and the blood and the fire as metal rips through him. It’s two bullets ( _blink blink blink_ ) but it’s one roar of agony and his hand falls useless to his side—

His other hand comes up, but even as he brings his gun up he’s falling back, pushed by the force, and the man stands over him ( _blink_ facial tattoos _blink_ Jackson the arsonist _blink blink blink_ ) until it’s one looming silhouette above him, and he knows he has to get his gun up and defend himself but he can’t, he can’t get his body to respond the way it should—

He falls through air like molasses, and he can see his wrist, can see the bracelet telling him where he is and _blink_ the bracelet is red _blink_ now it’s blue _blink_ red _blink_ blue _blink blink blink_

red blue red blue red blue

like police lights and sirens coming to the rescue only it’s too late, much too late, he’s falling and there’s nothing here to save—

Wes gets shot, and he falls.

_Blink._

Wes gets shot, and he falls.

_Blink._

In two worlds, Wes falls.

\---

_The ambulance rolls up, lights flashing redblue redblue, washing everything in a strange, shifting mix of colors. Paramedics leap out, shouting at each other, and then lights are shining into the car._

_“Sir, can you hear me? Can you respond?”_

_He groans, rolls his head. “Get them…get them out…”_

_“Sir, just hold on, we’ll get you out of there.”_

_No, he wants to scream, no, don’t worry about him, worry about them, worry about Travis and Alex, he can’t get to them and they need help, they haven’t woken up and he doesn’t know if they’re okay and he needs to make sure they’re okay—_

_Hands reach for him, and he tries to bat them away, tries to guide them to Alex and Travis, but they’re insistent and he’s so tired, so weak and there’s pain and he just wants to sleep…_

_“Alex…” he mumbles as they secure him to the gurney. “Travis…”_

_“Don’t worry, sir,” a paramedic says, leaning into his view. “We’ll get them. We’ll take care of them.”_

_The lights cast everything in shifting hues, redblue redblue redblue, and then the doors close and they’re taking him away._

\---

White ceiling flashes overhead, and fluorescent lights zip by. He stares at it for a long moment, words flowing over his head in a muted wash of sound, and he thinks he should know that ceiling but he can’t quite place it. There’s something else, something…

He tries to sit up, and hands reach for him, push him down. Someone speaks to him, white coat and scrubs, and he frowns. A doctor, and now that he looks around he sees nurses as well and why—

Oh. Right. He got shot.

He got _shot._

Panic thrums through his veins, and he attempts to rise once more. They keep him down, so instead he opens his mouth. There’s a mask over his face, but he asks anyway, demands, “What happened to him? Is he safe?”

The ER staff must have experience translating oxygen-mask speak into real words, because one of the nurses leans forward and says, “Who?”

“My partner.” He tries to lift one hand, to check his bracelet and see who he should be worried about (both, his brain supplies, he needs to be worried about both), but that wrist in particular is connected to a shot-up shoulder. When he tries to move it, fire races up his arm and he whites out for a second.

When he comes back, they’re lifting him onto a table. This time, instead of foolishly trying to lift his arm, he cranes his neck, squinting to make out his wrist. There’s blood everywhere, but if he only shifts his wrist a little he should be able to see—

His wrist is bare. The bracelet is gone, and that—

Panic flares again, and his heartbeat soars. Someone makes a comment above him, but he ignores it, reaching for the mask with his good hand while simultaneously trying to push himself up. More hands grab him, try to get him back down, but that isn’t—this isn’t—he doesn’t know where he is. They took his bracelet and _he doesn’t know where he is_.

“Where am I?” he demands of the doctor at his side.

The doctor makes a sharp motion behind Wes’s back. “You’re at LA General. You need to lie down—”

“No, _no!_ ” He wrenches out of the doctor’s grip with more force than he thought he could muster. It almost sends him tumbling off the table. “I don’t know where I am. Who’s alive? I need to know who’s alive!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“ _I don’t know where I am!_ ” The panic is sky-high now, and his heart is racing, and he remembers this feeling, back when this whole thing started, when he woke up every morning and the world had turned upside-down and he felt like he was losing all semblance of control. His chest is tight and he’s hyperventilating and it’s like the ground is spinning beneath his feet. He remembers this.

More shouted words around him, and then there’s a prick, a barely-there jab of pain in his good arm, and the world starts fading, which is really much better than the spinning sensation. He wobbles, and he mumbles, “Where am I?” before everything goes dark.

\---

There are no dreams.

For once, there are no dreams.

\---

The first thing he does upon waking is look at his wrist. He ignores the lethargy in his body and the pain in his shoulder that the drugs can’t quite mask and he cranes his neck, staring at his wrist. But aside from the thin hospital wristband, there’s nothing.

His heart races; somewhere in the room a monitor speeds up, measuring the spike in his heart rate. He ignores it. He ignores the squeeze in his chest and the way his entire body is trembling and how the floor lurches beneath his feet. It doesn’t matter, none of it matters, what _matters_ right now is getting out of here and finding out where he is, because he can’t do this again, he can’t go back to the beginning when he had no idea what was happening or which world he’d wake up in.

It was bad enough the first time. He can’t do it again.

It takes more effort than it ought to, but he makes it upright, clutching the side of the bed for support until the floor stabilizes under his feet. He tears the sensor off his finger with a growl. Off to the side, the beeps of the heart monitor become a steady, shrill whine; Wes ignores that too.

A couple of nurses rush in as he’s awkwardly pulling himself to his feet. They rush up and, without the encumbrance of a wounded shoulder or anxiety thrumming through their veins, easily wrest him back to the bed. He arches up against them, breath coming in short gasps he can’t control. His head is spinning.

“Where am I?” he demands, clutching at one of the women’s arms. “Where _am_ I?”

“You’re at LA General,” she says soothingly, gesturing to the other nurse. “You’re safe. Sir, I need you to calm down.”

“Where _am I?_ ” He flails, trying to sit up, trying to push her away. “I don’t know where I am. _Where am I?_ ”

He’s panicking, panicking, because this is his worst fear— What if _both_ worlds were a dream? What if he woke up to the news that both Travis and Alex were dead, and he shattered completely, because it’s painful enough to lose one of them, but to lose _both?_ No. No, he can’t handle that at all.

He doesn’t know which world he’s in, and he _needs_ to know, because the last option is too horrible to even contemplate.

The other nurse comes over with a needle, plunging it into his arm. He stares at both of them, pleading now, even as the drugs sweep through him and try to drag him away.

“Where am I?” he begs, one last time, hoping for an answer.

The nurse says, as gently as possible, “You’re safe,” which isn’t the right answer at all.

The sedatives sink their hooks in and drag him under, and the panic follows him down.

\---

_He wakes in the hospital, and he’s alone._

\---

He wakes, alone and in the dark, and he panics. Because he knows if he looks, his wrist will be bare, and he still won’t know where he is or who’s alive and he can’t do that, he can’t, he needs to know where he is or he’s lost and he _can’t_ do that, he just can’t _handle_ it.

The heart monitor beeps, frantic little fluttering as his heart speeds up. He tries to calm himself, because he doesn’t need another nurse rushing in, doesn’t need to be sedated one more time. What he _needs_ is to figure out _where the hell he is_.

There’s a little snuff to his right, and a rustle of cloth, and then a sleepy voice mumbles, “Wes?”

His heart instantly slows, and he has to close his eyes against a flurry of relieved tears. “Travis?”

The sound of a yawn, and the little grunts and noises as his partner stretches. “Yup. God, that chair is uncomfortable.”

Wes opens his eyes, turns and blinks at his partner, half-hidden in the gloom. “Travis.”

Travis pauses at whatever he hears in Wes’s voice. “Yeah, buddy, I’m here.” He moves up beside the bed, perching on the edge, voice going soft. “I’m right here.”

Wes’s throat is tight, and it has nothing to do with being shot and everything to do with the man beside him. Wordlessly, he reaches out, fumbling for Travis’s hand.

They’re not the kind to often show affection like this, but Travis quietly slips their fingers together, a stable, warm, comforting presence. He’s _here_. Travis is here, and for the first time in—Wes doesn’t even know how long it’s been, just that he’s been drowning and now he finally feels like he can breathe again.

“The docs said you were kind of confused when you woke up,” Travis murmurs, brushing his thumb reassuringly across the back of Wes’s hand. A little touch, a nothing touch, but it means the world, because that’s Travis all the way, comforting little touches at the times when he needs it most. “They figured a familiar face might help.”

“Yeah, Travis.” Wes closes his eyes, breathes against another wash of tears that he only just barely holds back. “Yeah, it helps.”

“Good.” Travis bobs his head a little, sitting back. It’s such a relief, to have him here. Wes didn’t know how lost he’d been.

He swallows. “Um, the guy. The…” It takes a second to remember what case they’d been working on. “The arsonist. Did you get him?”

Travis gives him a softer version of his _Wow, really, are you even thinking right now?_ look. “Guy shot a cop in a house full of cops. Of course we got him, man.”

“Good.”

“Yeah.” Travis shifts, looking around the room. His gaze falls on his jacket, draped across the back of the chair he’d been sitting in, and his face lights up. “Oh, I got you something!” He stands up, fingers pulling away from Wes’s, and Wes does his best not to feel abandoned. Travis is just going across the room. He’ll be right back.

He swallows around the lump in his throat and tries his best to sound normal. “Tell me it’s not a bear.”

“I did get you a bear,” Travis says, bouncing back to the bed. “It was wearing a scrub top and had a little cast and it was adorable. But there was a girl going into surgery on the elevator, and I figured she’d appreciate it more.”

“How astute of you,” Wes remarks dryly.

“I have a good sense about these things,” Travis remarks with a grin. “So instead, I got you this.” He holds it up.

More tears threaten to spill out. Wes blames it on his injury and whatever drugs they’re giving him.

In Travis’s hands is a bracelet. It’s the wrong shade of blue, and it says ‘LA General’ in indented white letters, but other than that, it’s perfect. Wes resists the urge to snatch it out of Travis’s hands and instead gently reaches out with his good arm.

“How did you know?”

Travis’s eyes are quiet and much too understanding. “Well, a pretty ER nurse told me you only really started freaking out when you saw your bracelet was gone, so…” He makes a little motion with his hand. “If it helps, you know…”

“Thank you,” Wes murmurs, with the most sincerity he can muster. He carefully slips the bracelet on, and it’s like he’s just been anchored into place. It’s so much better than drifting without knowing.

When he looks up, Travis is still watching him, gaze soft but Wes can’t quite quantify what this look means. “You ever going to tell me what that’s about, man?”

Wes has thought about it, telling Travis everything that’s been happening to him since the accident. He _wants_ to—Travis is his partner, Wes trusts him with his life.

But Wes needs Travis, he _needs_ him on a fundamental level, and more than losing his job is the thought of Travis looking at him like he’s broken. Wes _knows_ he’s broken, but he can get by, so long as Travis doesn’t start to think it too.

“I will, Trav,” he mumbles, hooking one finger around the bracelet. “Someday, I will.” Someday, when he’s a little more stable, and he can handle whatever reaction Travis throws his way. When he can think about losing Travis without feeling like he’s about to break apart again.

Someday.

Travis leaves it at that, nodding slowly. “Yeah, okay.” He pats Wes’s hand, then slowly steps away from the bed. Wes’s fingers itch to grab him and never let him go. He resists.

“Travis? You won’t leave?” His voice comes out small, plaintive, and Wes kind of hates it but at the same time he’s exhausted and he can’t be bothered to care that much.

Travis settles into the chair, and that smile never leaves his face, the one that says _I’ve got your back, partner_. “Naw, man. I’m not leaving.” He leans back, settling in. “I’ll be right here when you wake up. Get some rest, Wes.”

Wes nods, leaning into the pillows. His fingers run over the rubber of the blue bracelet one more time, just one more affirmation that he’s still here. Anchored here, now, and the next time he wakes up, he’ll know where he is even if Travis isn’t there. That’s really all he can ask for.

Wes closes his eyes.

\---

Wes wakes, and his hand gropes for hers even before he opens his eyes. He knows she’ll be there, because if their places were reversed…

His hand finds hers, and he wraps their fingers together. He opens his eyes and tilts his head so he can watch her wake, see the way she shifts and her fingers tighten around his as she stirs. Her eyes flutter, and she pushes herself up.

Wes smiles. “Hey, Alex.”

Her eyes fill with tears, and he feels his own following suit. “Hey yourself,” she murmurs, giving his hand a squeeze. “How’re you feeling?”

“I’ve been better,” he chuckles. She laughs too, a little strained, and runs her thumb across the back of his hand. Different from how Travis did it, more intimate, but the same sense of comfort and security.

“I love you,” he whispers, just to say it. He feels like he doesn’t say it enough. With all the crap she’s had to put up with from him, she deserves to hear it said every minute of every day.

She gives him a wobbly smile and squeezes his hand. “I love you too.” A moment passes between them, tender but strong, and he’s so very glad she’s stayed through everything.

Alex’s fingers trace over the veins in his wrist, thumb making smooth circles on the back of his hand. “You missed your appointment with Dr. Van Waals, obviously,” she says, apropos of nothing. Wes watches her; she stares at their joined hands. “So I went. And…we had a long talk. It was good.”

“Yeah?” He doesn’t ask what they talked about—he knows better.

She nods, blinks rapidly. “Yeah. He, um…he said that, uh, that everyone copes with loss in different ways. That it’s part of the grieving process. So if…” She reaches into her pocket, and Wes knows what she’s got before she pulls the red rubber bracelet out. “If the dreams help you, in some way, then…” The sentence hangs in the air, but she doesn’t finish it just yet. She slides the bracelet onto his wrist and twines their fingers together, biting her lip the way she does when she’s bracing herself to say something difficult.

When she looks up, she’s crying, tears silently running down her cheeks. “I don’t want to hear any more stories, Wes,” she whispers. She looks like it physically hurts her to say it; or maybe she’s just worried that it will hurt _him_.

(She’s always so worried about him.)

“If the dreams are helping you,” she continues, voice tight, “then…that’s fine, that’s wonderful. But I don’t want you to tell me about them anymore.”

Wes’s first instinct is to get upset. He’s sharing the dreams because Travis was their friend, and how can she not want to remember him? He was doing it for _her_.

But then, in a flash of insight, he gets it. She lost a friend that night too, and like Dr. Van Waals said, everyone copes and grieves differently. Alex has never been one for holding on and clinging to things, not the way Wes does. Alex lets go and moves on.

Wes told himself he was sharing the stories for her, but really, it was just for him. Alex doesn’t need the stories to remember their friend, and he feels so stupid for not realizing how much it was hurting her earlier.

“Okay,” he murmurs, tugging at her hand. “No more stories.”

She follows the pull, climbing onto the bed, careful of his injury. Their hand stay connected, and she lays her head on his chest. Wes holds her tight, because she’s as much his anchor in this world as Travis is in the other, and when he closes his eyes, he’s not afraid for a moment that he’ll wake up lost.

\---

_He wakes in the hospital, and he’s alone._

_His first thought is for the others. He could care less about himself—what happened to them? He stabs the call button, ignoring the twinges of pain throughout his entire body. A doctor eventually comes in, and Wes tries to decide if that’s a good sign or a bad one._

_“Mr. Mitchell, it’s good to see you’re awake,” the doctor says jovially, but there’s no time for that. Wes fixes him with a stare._

_“Where are Alex and Travis? My passengers, my wife and my partner. What happened to them?”_

_The doctor’s face shifts, and just like that Wes knows. But no, no, it can’t be, they were just laughing and singing together, they were all FINE—_

_Wes won’t believe it until he hears the words._

_“Mr. Mitchell, perhaps you’d like to rest a bit longer—”_

_“What happened to Alex and Travis?” He pushes himself up, fixes the man with his best interrogation stare. The doctor tries to stare him down, but Wes has practice, and he’s got the determination to keep it up until he gets the answers he wants._

_The doctor sighs. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Mitchell, but…”_

_There’s a sound like rushing water in his ears, and the ground lurches beneath him. He thinks he’s about to throw up._

_“My condolences on your loss.”_

_Just like that, Wes’s world shatters apart._

\---

“So have you learned anything from this experience?” Dr. Van Waals asks at his next session, “Anything you can use to determine which world is real?”

“I thought you said this world was real,” Wes says absently, adjusting his sling so his arm rests a little more comfortably on his chest.

“It doesn’t matter what I say,” the doctor states. “What matters is what you think.”

Wes resists the urge to shrug. It just pulls at his shoulder and being in pain sucks. “I think it doesn’t matter which world is real.”

The other man’s eyebrows reach for his forehead. “It doesn’t matter?” He makes a note on his pad. “Interesting. I thought that was your goal, to figure out the truth.”

“It was.” Wes leans back, and for once, he doesn’t reach for the stress ball on the doctor’s table. For once, he’s not stressed in the slightest. “But I realized something important, and I decided that it didn’t matter anymore.”

“What did you realize?”

Wes crosses his legs, and he smiles. “There was a moment, in the hospital, when things got a little…confused. I woke up, and I didn’t know which world I was in. And I wondered…if maybe they had both died, and both of these worlds were dreams. And you know what?” He laughs, a small, mirthless chuckle. “I realized I’d rather live like this for the rest of my life than live without either one of them in my life. So this…” He waves a negligent hand around the room. “This is all fine.”

“You just plan to continue on as you are?” Dr. Van Waals clarifies.

“Exactly.”

The doctor leans forward. “You’ll go insane. Your mind will break. The brain needs to rest when it sleeps, and yours is not. Your brain is concocting this elaborate fantasy for you. It won’t be able to handle the stress upon it for long.”

Wes just smiles, thin and sharp, and says “I don’t care.”

\---

“Are you happy, Wes?” Dr. Ryan asks, a tranquil sort of concern in her voice. “Can you be happy, flipping between worlds like this?”

He has to laugh. “Happy? Doctor, the last time I was _happy_ was October 3rd, at 11:25 PM, listening to my wife and my partner sing. I was happy when we were _together_. Now…” He shakes his head. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be happy again.”

“Then you—”

“But I’m content.” Her mouth snaps shut as he continues. “Because I realized that I’d rather live like this, with one of them at a time, than in a world with neither of them.”

She doesn’t say anything. He leans forward, ignoring the way his stitches pull and his shoulder twinges warningly at him. “I am _content_ , and that is enough. It has to be enough, because I refuse to lose either of them. And I don’t care if I go mad from this. It doesn’t make a difference. I’m not going to lose them again.”

He’s already buried them once, watched two coffins get lowered into the ground and heard the weeping in the stands. And he’d thought, _I’d do anything to get you back_.

Anything at all.

He’s already lost them once, and it almost broke him, to the point that his mind created an entire separate reality. So it doesn’t matter which world is real and which is the dream, he needs Alex and Travis in his life, and he’s not going choose. Even if this is the only way he can have them.

If the price to pay for having them is his sanity, so be it.

He won’t lose either of them ever again.

\---

_blink and maybe he won’t be dead—_

_blink and maybe she won’t be dead—_

_blink and maybe—_

_blink_

_blink_

_blink_


End file.
